THE OIREACHTAS Commission spent almost half a million euro more than had been budgeted for in redundancy payments last year due to a higher number of people than expected applying for redundancy in the Dáil and Seanad.
Company accounts for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission 2011 showed that payments of €6.37 million were made to 211 staff after a deduction of almost €900,000 relating to social insurance rebates was taken into account.
The figures include 148 former Dáil staff, made up of 67 secretarial assistants, 63 parliamentary assistants, nine administrative assistants, eight administrators and one chef de cabinet.
It also included 38 former Seanad staff including 34 secretarial assistants and four administrative assistants.
The remaining 25 redundancies included staff made redundant due to the death or resignation of Oireachtas members and statutory redundancies relating to a number of temporary vouched employees.
The accounts also reveal that the commission spent more than €1.3 million in overtime and “extra attendance” payments in 2011, with 68 individuals receiving overtime and extra attendance payments exceeding €10,000.
The highest individual overtime -extra attendance payment claimed in 2011 was for €32,850.
Six staff were paid “higher, special or additional duties allowances” of over €10,000. The highest individual payment was for €19,585.
Three staff were paid more than €10,000 in “other allowances” with the highest recipient receiving €19,126.
Meanwhile, six former civil servants were “re-engaged on a fee basis” by the Houses of the Oireachtas Service in 2011 at a total cost of €23,514, while 13 employees received €16,867 in ex gratia between them “in acknowledgement of their exceptional performance in 2011”.
Political parties and individual politicians were paid out over €16 million between them in leaders’ allowances, electoral expenses reimbursements and payments to qualified parties under the Electoral Acts last year.
The accounts show that almost €8 million was paid to the leaders of certain parties in Dáil Éireann while reimbursements of electoral expenses topped €3 million.
Meanwhile “payments to qualified parties under the Electoral Acts”, which include expenses for the general administration of the party; research, education and training; and policy formulation, topped €5.4 million in 2011.
Although the extra costs are paid from the Central Fund, which is administered by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, they are listed in the commission’s accounts for 2011.
Similarly pensions in respect of former holders of the ceann comhairle post, the cost of which stood at €320,000 in 2011, is paid not by the commission but the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, as are superannuation and retired allowances, the cost of which stood at almost €3.2 million.